Grieving
by Ulysses Quanta
Summary: "You're enjoying this, aren't you? The killing of men!" The words still ring in Mikazuki's head after the end of the battle with the Brewers. What if he had bumped into someone else instead of Kudelia after the funeral?


_"You're enjoying this, aren't you? The killing of men!"_ The words of the pilot of the green mobile suit, the one Azee and Nadi had called the Gundam Gusion, came back to Mikazuki as he rode the elevator up the ship.

 _Do I really enjoy killing people?_ Mika wondered as he stared at his hand. The same hand which had killed so many people under the orders of other people, in the defence of other people. By gun, knife or Barbatos, it had taken the lives of people who were in his way, in Orga's way.

No matter the reasoning, Mikazuki had still killed people in cold blood. That was the truth.

Mikazuki walked the hallways aimlessly, eyes closed, his hand clenching and unclenching it in his pocket, lost in thought for a while, thinking about his decisions, his actions, until his feet finally took him to a place he knew.

"Mikazuki?"

Atra.

Mikazuki opened his eyes looked at the source of the voice. Atra had been cleaning up the counter of the mess hall and had noticed him walk in. She stared at him now, eyes full of concern. "You okay, Mikazuki?" she asked.

Mika looked at her, then at his hand. Something was wrong, he knew that. But what?

"No. It's just..." The words wouldn't come to him. Why wouldn't they?

He realised the girl was staring at him. "Hungry?" he asked Atra as he pulled a Mars Palm out of his pocket and held it out.

"Y-yeah, sure," she said, letting go of her cleaning rag and walking around the counter to him. She reached her hand out to take it when she noticed something.

"Mikazuki... Your hand is..."

Mika looked down to see his hand was shaking. More so than normal. _Why is it still shaking?_ he wondered as he turned his hand around, watching it quiver and tremor. "It's still shaking. I wonder why." _Something feels strange today,_ he thought to himself.

"Mikazuki, do you want to talk about it?" Atra asked. Mikazuki looked at her, then at his hand. Did he want to talk about it? What was there to talk about?

"I... I don't know," he admitted truthfully.

Atra looked away from him, saddened for a moment, but stepped back and smiled. "You can stay in here with me for a while until you want to talk, Mikazuki?" she offered.

Mikazuki looked at her for a moment, thinking. Shino was taking care of patrol on the ship tonight, so he didn't need to be on patrol. Orga had told him to get some rest, too... Mikazuki nodded at Atra, and she smiled and walked behind the counter again, humming a tune to herself as she started making a cup of... something. Mikazuki wasn't sure what. Leaving him to his thoughts.

 _"You're enjoying this, aren't you? The killing of men!"_ The words the man said as Mikazuki tried to kill him, tried to end the fight, continued to play in Mika's mind, over and over again. _Why does what he said even matter_? he wondered again.

The clatter of cups drew him out of his thoughts, and he looked at Atra, who had placed two cups of brown liquid on the counter, and was sat on a chair next to it, currently blowing on one of them.

"It's tea," Atra explained in response to the Mikazuki's confused look. "Mrs Haba taught me how to make them. They help me when something's bothering me." Mikazuki nodded, and sat down next to her and gently picked up the cup, briefly sniffing at it before attempting to drink it, the scalding hot liquid causing him to flinch back in response. "Be careful, it's hot," Atra warned him. Setting the cup back down, he looked to Atra in confusion. "You are supposed to blow on it to cool it down first," she explained. Mikazuki nodded, and started trying to blow on it like Atra had been doing.

"It tastes pretty weird," he stated bluntly.

Atra tried to suppress a small giggle. "It does. You'll get used to it." The two sat there in comfortable silence for a while, alternating between blowing and sipping their teas while Mikazuki returned to his thoughts, dwelling on the words of the pilot.

"...the killing of men," Mikazuki repeated out loud, reciting the man's words for the umpteenth time.

"What?" Atra asked, drawing Mikazuki's gaze, a brief flicker of emotion flashing across his face as he realised he'd said it out loud.

"The pilot of the green mobile suit, the one I was fighting against in Barbatos... He said something. "You are enjoying this, aren't you? The killing of men!"" Mikazuki explained.

"Oh..." Atra looked down at her tea.

"But I'm not sure if he was wrong. If I do enjoy killing people." Mikazuki took a sip of his tea, before putting his cup down and stood up, looking at his hand again. "But something is weird. The ice flowers were nice, and it was good that we could say goodbye to them, but that doesn't explain why I'm like this, why the pilot's words bother me," he admitted, still looking at his hand.

"Mikazuki." Two hands gently started cradling his hand. "I think you are grieving," Atra explained.

"Huh?"

"We lost some of our friends today. Mrs Haba told me once that everyone grieves in their own way. Maybe this is your way of grieving.

 _Grieving?_ Mika thought. _Am I grieving?_

Mikazuki was jolted out of his thoughts by Atra moving. He looked up from his hand at her in time to see her move toward him, arms wrapping around him.

"Huh?" he grunted in confusion.

"F-Fumitan did this with some of the others earlier and it helped them a bit. I-I-I thought it would help you... S-sorry," Atra stammered out as she quickly let go, her face turning a shade crimson as she tried to smile at him.

Mikazuki looked at her for a moment, confusion clearing up, thinking about saying something, asking why her face had gone red. Was she ill?

Then he remembered something Atra had told him about when they were younger. How people would give people they liked hugs, and how Mrs Haba and her husband would do it a lot, and they'd do something afterwards called a kiss. Atra had borrowed a book with a picture of the thing she called a kiss. It had looked weird, but then Naze was doing something similar with Amida earlier, so it must've been right.

So if Atra had given him a hug...

Surely he should kiss her, right?

So kiss her he did.

Atra was confused, her mind struggled to process what just happened. She'd tried to comfort him, help him, and then she'd gone too far and hugged him. He should've freaked out, right?

Instead he was kissing her.

He was kissing her.

...He was kissing her!

Atra's mind finally caught up to what just happened, and her face went scarlet red as she stood there for a moment, his lips on hers, trying to figure out what she should do. Should she run? Should she hide? Should she act like nothing happened?

 _Atra, what are you doing? Kiss him back!_ her mind screamed at her, causing her to snap back to where she was. Before she could do anything, Mikazuki had stepped back. Mikazuki opened his eyes, only to see Atra had gone even redder than before.

 _She must really be ill._

"W-w-w-what was t-that for?" Atra stammered out, her face still scarlet red.

"I wanted to say thank you," Mikazuki explained, before putting his hand in his pocket and digging out a Mars Palm and holding it out to her. "You didn't like it?" he asked.

Atra started shaking her head frantically. "N-no, nothing like that, it's just..." she tried to explain, but Mikazuki had turned back to drinking his tea and chewing on a Mars Palm, leaving her to stare at him for a moment before going back to her cup of tea.

 _That just happened..._ she thought to herself.

She knew she should probably explain to Mikazuki what was actually supposed to happen. But for now, she was content to just sit and drink tea with him, the butterflies still fluttering inside her from it.

...

 _Author's Note: Do you ever get those ideas that sound really good on paper? Well, this was one of those ideas. I'm so sorry if it was cringy and OOC, but I hope you enjoyed it._

 _If you liked this, be sure to check out What's a Date? and Family as well. Shout out to Comfort by DarkxZero2 for inspiring me to try and write Mikazuki/Atra fics, even if mine aren't quite on the same level as that is, as well as Consolidation by the same author for inspiration for this fic. Please go check them out on AO3._


End file.
